


Reading Sherlock

by Kryptaria



Series: If You Were... 'verse outtakes and cut scenes [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Gen, If You Were 'verse, If You Were Mine outtake, repost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-25
Updated: 2012-06-25
Packaged: 2017-11-08 13:28:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/443678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kryptaria/pseuds/Kryptaria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mycroft arrives at 221-B to task his brother with another job, only to realize that something's gone terribly wrong.</p><p>A glimpse into Mycroft's thought processes after John and Sherlock spend the night together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reading Sherlock

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nghthwk8](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Nghthwk8).



> Apologies for reposting this, but If You Were... is expanding as an AU, and this is necessary for organization. I hate to lose the comments from the old version, but hopefully this will work better in the long run!

**Monday, 8 March 2010**

Mycroft stared up at the cow skull on the wall and sighed at the deliberately manufactured eccentricity, wishing (not for the first time) that Sherlock hadn’t enjoyed a brief interest in electricity a few years back. Always voracious for knowledge, he’d mastered more than enough of the principles to learn how to detect whatever surveillance devices his team installed in this space, cluttered as it was. Or perhaps he wasn’t using detection equipment. He could tell at a glance if a single fiber had been moved out of place, so perhaps he just _noticed_ the trace evidence left behind by Mycroft’s team.

It was a shame that the most reliable surveillance came from indirect sources — CCTV, distance mics in the building across the way, that sort of thing. Worse yet, Sherlock knew it and tended to foil them as well, slithering through the underbelly of London with a preternatural awareness of CCTV locations, garbling the mic pickups with static, and the like. Sometimes he did it when he was up to no good, but other times, Mycroft knew full well that Sherlock was simply toying with the surveillance team.

He’d had more than one agent quit altogether in sheer frustration. There was grumbling, not all of it good-natured, about having Sherlock-watch categorized as hazardous, with a corresponding rise in pay.

Wondering if this was how his predecessors had felt during the days of the Cold War or the intelligence blunders of World War II, Mycroft returned to the least objectionable seat in the flat. It was a minor antique from the late fifties with art deco stylings inspired by the grand architect Le Corbusier. How Sherlock had managed to afford it when he didn’t even have full tin of tea in the cupboards made Mycroft shake his head in despair. His brother could have been so much _more_ if he’d simply applied himself and bowed to reality. But no, instead Sherlock had to live hand-to-mouth like some sort of Bohemian artist, never wielding his own potential to its fullest.

A sound downstairs caught Mycroft’s attention. It wasn’t Mrs. Hudson, the landlady whose loyalty to Sherlock had proved more than a bit frustrating. _Finally,_ he thought, turning impatiently toward the door and hoping Sherlock wouldn’t be childish and run away upon realizing that Mycroft was here. Really, Mycroft had no idea what was so interesting about this ‘case’ of his that he had to go to an outside consultant. It wasn’t exactly quantum physics, the thing with the man o’war.

Thankfully, Sherlock decided not to play hide-and-seek. He threw open the door, sneered, and hung his coat and scarf, another of his eccentricities. His flat looked like a raven’s nest of treasures and trash strewn about (though Mycroft could, of course, see the pattern to his madness) but he was a clotheshorse of sorts and always took care with his finer garments. That, Mycroft thought a bit smugly, was _his_ influence imprinted on Sherlock’s psyche.

“Mycroft. Come to thank me for taking care of your problem in Paris?”

Mycroft read the subtext: Sherlock was making it clear that in his opinion, he’d fulfilled any obligation to Mycroft, at least for a little while. In truth, Sherlock’s work in Paris had been brilliant, far more than Mycroft had expected, but it wouldn’t do to say that. Armed with praise like that, he’d resist Mycroft for months, and there was a financial crisis looming on the horizon. He had to keep Sherlock in reserve, just in case.

“Yes, perfectly adequate, as I expected,” Mycroft said blandly, looking Sherlock over. He was still dressed in yesterday’s suit, shoes and trouser cuffs stained with... _Dear Lord,_ he thought distastefully, recognizing the hallmarks of biological contamination. His skin crawled. Weren’t coveralls worn for autopsies?

Odd. His clothes weren’t nearly rumpled enough to have been worn for twenty-four hours. Well, not quite odd — it wasn’t as if he could assume Sherlock had actually _slept_ in those twenty-four hours. He tended to go for days without, if something caught his attention.

But... no. He _had_ slept. He could see that by the way Sherlock’s movements lacked the exaggerated care he tended to take after the twenty-hour mark. There _was_ a certain stiffness... no, defensiveness. And it wasn’t the usual standoffishness he directed at Mycroft.

He’d slept, but not in his clothes.

Momentarily, Mycroft’s thoughts screeched to a halt.

“Then get out,” Sherlock said, crossing the room.

Interrogating Sherlock was tedious, but Mycroft was very, very good at it. He knew precisely where to jab and how to read Sherlock’s flinches. He pointedly looked Sherlock up and down, reminding him that there was no sense in dissembling, and smoothly asked, “Out all night, were you?”

“Concerned for me?” Sherlock fired back without a moment’s hesitation.

Interesting. He was quick-witted, but he’d had that remark prepared in advance as if anticipating Mycroft’s words.

Sherlock’s hand landed on the frontal bone of the skull on the mantle. The _unidentified_ skull. Mycroft had been trying for years to find out whose skull it was and where Sherlock had obtained it. He considered his ongoing lack of knowledge to be one of his greatest failures.

“Always,” he answered, letting a hint of patronizing worry seep into his tone. Sherlock was uncomfortable with emotion, even manufactured.

Sure enough, his hackles went up, but not aggressively. It was _defensive,_ the threat-display of a cornered animal ready to lash out to protect itself. “What do you want, Mycroft?” he demanded, going on the offense. “You have no right to bother me this soon. I did what you wanted — now leave me alone.”

Had he left it at the question, Mycroft might have let it pass. But that was too wordy for Sherlock, too _angry,_ and more alarms went off in the back of Mycroft’s mind. Quickly replaying the last few seconds in his mind, Mycroft realized Sherlock was keeping a distance as well, even though Sherlock often used his height and sheer presence to intimidate anyone who irritated him. It had been a natural talent learned as a young teenager, when a sudden growth spurt had him towering over his classmates — marking him as a target for ridicule almost as much as his brilliant mind had. His study of martial arts had helped him hone that talent into a weapon.

“Why?” Mycroft asked, concentrating on gathering evidence rather than trying to put the pieces together. Time enough for that later. “What could possibly be so urgent?”

Instead of answering, Sherlock went still for a moment, his blue-grey eyes going distant in a way that made Mycroft wonder if he’d spent the night taking drugs again. But that wouldn’t explain the clothes... Unless he’d been too drugged to —

To _what?_

“I have a meeting,” Sherlock said, turning away. “I need to shower, and I refuse to be late on your account. Kindly show yourself out. Use the window, in fact. It’s faster.”

Mycroft barely listened, dismissing the sharp words as meaningless, because his eyes were locked to the back of Sherlock’s head, where the collar of his jacket was soaked and locks of hair curled over the fabric, sharply defined by the damp.

 _He’s showered already,_ Mycroft thought, rising to his feet, suddenly much more alarmed. He said nothing — leaving Sherlock required no farewell, unless Mycroft was making a point about etiquette — and went to the door, where Sherlock’s topcoat caught his eye. Strands of short gold-brown hair were dusted over both shoulders, eight altogether. No, twelve, for there were three more on the scarf. Possibly more caught up in the folds he couldn’t see without taking the scarf down from its hook.

This required consideration.

 

~~~

 

“Stop typing,” Mycroft ordered his assistant, who obligingly put down the BlackBerry and fell so quiet that he could barely hear her breathing. The sedan cut smoothly through the midmorning traffic, heading back to Babylon-on-Thames.

The pieces didn’t fit, but Mycroft refused the temptation of discarding a few to allow the rest to mesh together.

The flat at 221-B Baker Street was the most likely place for Sherlock to indulge in his unsavory drug habit. To do otherwise would be too much of a risk. Sherlock had his own enemies — allies of criminals he’d helped lock away, the police he humiliated regularly — as well as those who would strike at Sherlock as an indirect attack at Mycroft. Drugs meant vulnerability which meant he would only take them in a place where he felt secure.

So, not drugs.

 _Not willingly,_ Mycroft realized, but he couldn’t quite follow the trail of that suspicion to its end. Not yet.

So what was he hiding? Like Mycroft, Sherlock was a creature of secrets and hidden layers, but Mycroft had the advantage of seven years on his younger brother. He could read _almost_ everything with absolute precision, except for this.

His thoughts went back to drugs, because the last time Sherlock had hidden a _new_ secret from Mycroft, that secret had been cocaine. It had taken Mycroft three frustrating weeks to finally put together the clues of Sherlock’s behavior, his long disappearances, and his manic mood swings. Now, of course, he could recognize the signs in a heartbeat, but then, he’d struggled like a blind man to try and see all the facets.

Sherlock was hiding something _new_.

And the next logical thought — out all night, clothes not slept in, something _new_ — was sex, but that was laughable. Sherlock had no interest in sex whatsoever. Years ago, their mother had mentioned that it would be undesirable if Sherlock were gay, because she expected grandchildren to carry on the family line, but Mycroft had laughed at the very idea. Sexuality was a distraction for both Holmes brothers, and though Mycroft would eventually do his duty to the family, Sherlock was as likely to impregnate some woman as he was to sprout wings and fly away. In fact, the wings were more likely. Mycroft doubted that Sherlock could even perform in bed, without chemical help.

“No,” he whispered abruptly, realizing that it would take something extraordinary — _chemical help_ — to get Sherlock _into_ bed in the first place. There was that one prescription drug, but that was physiological, wasn’t it? No, it was Sherlock’s _mind_ that would refuse any and all attempts at intimacy, but there were chemicals to manage that sort of thing as well.

“Sir?”

Mycroft looked over at his assistant, having dismissed her presence from his thoughts. Now, though, she could be useful. “That assistant my brother called to the morgue yesterday. Find out everything about him — top priority. I want all available information on my desk by the time I’m at the office.”

“Sir,” she acknowledged, and resumed her flurry of typing.

 

~~~

 

The papers were still warm from the printer, ink crisp and fresh. Military records of one Captain John Watson, awards for distinguished service and valor, including lengthy pages detailing the sensitive missions he’d executed throughout Eurasia and North Africa. Medical records cataloguing his injuries and illnesses in service, including the wounds that had ended what was otherwise a distinguished career. Letters of merit from several of his commanding officers and instructors from his time at Sandhurst. School records of his medical training, including his top-of-the-class grades. Copies of recommendations from his professors to help him gain admission to Sandhurst.

Ironically, the file included a note that Mycroft’s division was watching him as a potential recruit, once his term of service in Afghanistan ended.

A month ago, he’d moved into a flat in a new building. Apparently, he’d come into money, for his previous address had been significantly more disreputable. He’d been seeing several doctors since leaving the service — aftercare for his injury, physical therapy to regain motion in his left arm and hand, and a psychiatrist to help him integrate back into civilian life.

“Sir.” Another of his assistants rushed in, offering another folder, this one with fluttering red flags decorating the right edges of several pages. “Surveillance records from SH, flagged as appropriate.”

“Thank you,” Mycroft said automatically, turning his attention to the new file. It was a printout of Sherlock’s texts, the type of thing he loathed trudging through. Sherlock was obsessed with texting, and while it made it easier to read accurate printed transcripts of his communications, texting was so _common_.

He skimmed the flagged conversations, feeling a sense of growing alarm. Over the course of the last six weeks, Watson had been slowly, subtly manipulating Sherlock’s behavior. Nothing overt or damaging that Mycroft could immediately see — mostly things like refusing to continue communicating with Sherlock if he refused to sleep or eat — but it implied a level of control that was definitely uncharacteristic for his independent, stubborn younger brother.

The next report explained why. No, not why. _How._

This went beyond distasteful, this... _dominant_. (Apparently it was supposed to be capitalized — and was through half the report, like holes made in a paper target by birdshot at close range — but Mycroft would be damned before he’d elevate this _epithet_ to being a proper title.)

It nagged at his memory. He closed his eyes and pressed his fingertips together, shutting out the world at large. The push, hand-to-hand, finger-to-finger, was precisely balanced, like two boards leaning together, supporting themselves in defiance of gravity. It was a physical mnemonic to impose order upon chaos, something he had learned as a boy from a guest lecturer. Sherlock had picked up the habit somewhere along the way, though without the understanding of the philosophy behind it. Had he worked it out on his own or was it simply a physical habit?

Mycroft allowed his thoughts to wander, feeling them sweep away the cobwebs as they passed and faded to nothing. He pressed harder, maintaining balance, until his fingers were trembling.

A name came to him, a tenuous connection, something he remembered. Afghanistan. A connection to Parliament. A scandal, something regarding sexual misconduct...

A quick shuffle through the paperwork that encompassed the life of Watson, John, provided him with the answer. The touch of a button summoned his secretary, who barely made it through the door before Mycroft held up a hand, forestalling her. “Fetch today’s operations team lead, and bring me everything we have on Colonel Sebastian Moran.”

“Yes, sir.”

Ten minutes later, she knocked on the office door and entered, carrying a crisp new manila folder. “The team lead is here, sir, and here's what we have on Moran,” she said, laying the folder on Mycroft’s desk.

“Send him in.”

The man who changed places with the secretary looked like any other mid-level government agent. Mid-priced suit, short haircut, perhaps a bit more physically fit than most people who worked at a desk. Mycroft’s eyes flicked to the slight distortion of his suit jacket under the left arm: right-handed, authorized to carry a concealed firearm even here, in one of the most secure buildings in England.

“I need you to arrange a secure interrogation site, and then fetch the subject for me. Assume he will not come willingly, so use whatever force is necessary, short of lethal measures.”

“Yes, sir. The subject?”

“Captain John Watson.”

**Author's Note:**

> The Secret Intelligence Services (MI6) building is also known as Babylon-on-Thames for its resemblance to a Babylonian ziggurat or Legoland for obvious reasons: http://www.flickr.com/photos/undeleterious/514445543/
> 
> Regarding John’s schooling at Sandhurst, I may be taking inappropriate liberties here. I have no knowledge of either the British school system or its military. However, given that John left the military as a Captain, it is possible that he attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and entered the military as a Second Lieutenant. I apologize if this is wildly inaccurate and plead artistic license!
> 
> For more reading, here's the UK Army website regarding officer ranks: http://www.army.mod.uk/structure/23155.aspx


End file.
